


wednesday, a free man

by ingwertee



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Domestic Gallavich, M/M, lowkey comrade mickey, mickey & the gallaghers, mickey the old army employee, season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22271998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingwertee/pseuds/ingwertee
Summary: 7 a.m.Mickey’s at the kitchen table with Liam. They’re eating cereal and generally not talking to each other. Mickey’s got his hand wrapped up like a boxer about to put on a glove. Usually, Mickey’s totally zenned out at this point. He’s got a smoke in him and some coffee and watched the fucking sun rise and disassociated for a good hour. This morning is different, for obvious, thinking-Liam-was-dead reasons. So Mickey’s a little agitated.------A day in the life of Mickey Milkovich, parolee.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 33
Kudos: 377





	wednesday, a free man

**6 a.m.**

Mickey’s got a problem with the sunrise. Here’s his problem: Mickey had gotten pretty used to his concrete walls in prison. Now that he’s out, he wakes up as soon as the sun rises to the level of his window. It weirds him out. Sometimes he thinks it’s the flashlight of a prison guard, making sure he’s asleep. He flinches awake, and when he sees it’s just the sun, and that Ian’s asleep next to him, he tells himself to relax. Forget about the prison shit.

It’s not just the sun; it’s just fucking weird to be back home sometimes. He’s been on the run or in the can so long that sometimes he still thinks he’s supposed to be somewhere else – that there’s no good reason for him to show his face on the South Side again. Prison. Mexico. Prison. It’s been a goddamn long time since he’s been home. He’s been out a few weeks and it’s finally starting to wear on him, though. He’s starting to feel at home again. Comfortable, maybe. Even the looming threat of the cartel doesn’t seem to faze him anymore.

Now that he’s getting up with the sun Mickey tends to like to go outside, to watch the rest of it go up. Usually just makes himself some coffee and goes to sit on the front stoop of the Gallagher home. He sits and sips his coffee and doesn’t think a goddamn thing. Debbie found him once – the walk of shame after a long night – and must have thought he was reflecting on something traumatic and shit, because she went straight to Ian and woke him up. Told him to check on Mickey.

He's okay. Really. He’s out of prison. He’s with Ian. He’s back on the South Side. He’s fucking peachy. The rest of it, the baggage and shit, that’s just par for the fucking course.

So it’s one summer Wednesday that Mickey pours himself a mug of hot coffee and steps outside, taking in the fresh air. Ready to veg out for a few minutes, to drink and maybe smoke and stare out at the quiet street. But before Mickey can even sit down on the front stoop he spots Liam Gallagher, lying face down in the grass.

“The fuck?” Mickey says, breath caught in his throat. He whips around back towards the house, as if the rest of the Gallaghers were in on this, like this was some kind of prank they started up while Mickey was away. He can never be sure – the Gallagher home has changed substantially since Mickey’s been gone. Mostly everyone’s just gotten older. But no one’s awake, he knows this already, so he rushes down the steps, panic rising from his chest to his throat.

“Kid. Hey, kid.” Mickey kneels down so fast the coffee in the mug he’s holding spills over his hand. He hisses and lets go of the mug. It tumbles onto the grass but Mickey doesn’t care. “Kid. Wake up. Hey.” He rolls Liam over, shakes him, slaps his cheek. He’s freaking out. The feeling’s back – he’s not supposed to be here. Ian should be here. Lip. Debbie. Anyone. What the hell is he g—?

Liam jolts awake, jerking away from Mickey’s tight grip.

“What the fuck!” they say at the same time. Mickey collapses onto the grass, heart beating wildly.

“Dude, you slapped me,” Liam says.

“Are you okay?” Mickey says at the same time. He registers what Liam says but doesn’t have the bandwidth this early in the morning to respond. He runs a hand along his face. Closes his eyes. “What the hell, man,” Mickey eventually says, words tumbling out on an exhale. “You sleepin’ out here?”

Liam looks sheepish. He sits up and pulls his knees against his chest. He’s got marks on his face, outlines of blades of grass from his slumber. He shrugs, attempting nonplussed. “Sometimes I just wake up outside,” he admits.

“What?"

“I don’t know. I guess I sleepwalk sometimes.” Liam says.

Mickey looks at him. Liam is a constant reminder of how long he’s been gone. When he left Liam was a toddler who never said a word, just stared at everyone. Now he talks a whole lot more; he’s as opinionated and cunning as any Gallagher. Taller, too. And, apparently, he walks in his sleep.

“You burned your hand.” Liam says then.

“What?”

“Your hand.” Liam says. He points to where the hot coffee had spilled onto him in his haste to check on Liam.

“Fuck,” Mickey whispers. Now that he’s done thinking about how he's gonna tell a house full of Gallaghers that Liam is dead, the dull pain of the burn grows stronger. He presses his hand against the burn, cringing.

“I’m sorry.” Liam says quickly.

Mickey shakes his head. It’s not your fault, he wants to say, but he can’t quite bring himself to say it. He stands up, uncomfortable. He’s embarrassed, too, now.

“I can fix it.” Liam says. He picks up the half-empty mug from the grass and stands up as well. “I know how to treat burns.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” Mickey takes the mug from Liam’s hand. Liam looks at the ground. Bites his lip. “Listen,” Mickey says, “you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Liam nods. “I mean, when I do this, someone always finds me.”

“Yeah,” Mickey nods, feeling absurd. “Uh, okay.”

**7 a.m.**

An hour later, there’s movement in the Gallagher home.

Mickey’s at the kitchen table with Liam. They’re eating cereal and generally not talking to each other. Mickey’s got his hand wrapped up like a boxer about to put on a glove. Usually, Mickey’s totally zenned out at this point. He’s got a smoke in him and some coffee and watched the fucking sun rise and disassociated for a good hour. This morning is different, for obvious, thinking-Liam-was-dead reasons. So Mickey’s a little agitated.

Carl’s in the shower upstairs, and little Franny is toddling around in the front room. Mickey’s not sure how she got down the stairs. Or who’s supposed to be watching her. He and Liam eye her warily from time to time, but she mostly seems interested in her stuffed animals.

“Does it hurt?” Liam asks.

“Chill out with the hand, man.” Mickey responds quickly. Liam shuts up.

Lip comes into the kitchen through the back door, then. “Yo,” Lip greets them distractedly. He looks tired, and heads straight for the coffee, pausing only to notice Franny.

“The fuck?” he mutters under his breath. He sighs and sets down the mugs in his hands. “Fuckin’ Debbie, man.” He says, striding into the front room and towards the stairs. “Yo, Debbie!” he calls up the stairs. “Debs! You watchin’ your kid or what?”

“Yo, stop yelling!” Carl calls from the shower. The water turns off. “She’s not here.”

“She’s not here.” Lip repeats dumbly. He shouts up at Carl again. “Well who put Franny to bed?”

“I did.” Liam says from the kitchen, voice raised so Lip can hear from the other room.

Mickey puts his face in his hands. Liam really put a damper in his hour of silence. The Gallaghers have a knack for making their presence known from the moment they wake up until the moment they fall asleep.

“Okay,” Lip says to himself. “Okay.” He picks up Franny and she welcomes the touch, wrapping her arms around Lip. “Uncle Lip’s got ya,” Lip says. He bounces her a little, like his body is only wired to hold newborns now, and anyone under five gets bounced. But Franny doesn’t complain.

He heads back into the kitchen as Franny rests her head on his shoulder. He gives Mickey and Liam a look.

Liam and Mickey raise their eyebrows simultaneously. What? The eyebrows say. What’d I do?

But Lip’s not here to chastise them. Mickey recognizes this after a beat. He looks exhausted. Like Franny’s heavier than he realized.

Mickey’s not sure how it all went down. When Fiona left. He’s only heard from Ian, who himself heard secondhand from his siblings. But Mickey supposes Lip must’ve taken over as head of the family. Maybe he hadn’t realized how hard that would be. Fiona had run a tight ship. Ian told him that Debbie tried to take over right before Mickey got released – clearly that hadn’t worked out.

The look Lip gives them now says, I’ve got a newborn. I can’t deal with this 24/7. Mickey looks down. Liam looks at Mickey.

And then Carl tumbles down the stairs, wearing a pair of Ian’s old ROTC boots and ready to go train his cadets.

“Here,” Lip says, unloading Franny into Carl’s arms. “I’ve gotta go check on my kid.”

“No fair,” Carl complains, but he adjusts Franny in his arms anyway. She doesn’t mind the switch from one uncle to another. “I’m training the cadets in an hour.”

“Yeah, buddy, we’re all working in an hour.” Lip says. He glances back at the table. “Ian still watchin’ the kids today, Mickey?”

“Yeah.” Mickey says. Part of him bristles at the question. I’m not his keeper, he wants to say.

“What, he still asleep?” Lip asks.

“Yeah.” Mickey says again. He gets up, then, annoyed, and puts his cereal bowl in the sink. He deflects Carl’s attempt to dump Franny on him and heads up the stairs before anyone else can ask him anything.

**7:30 a.m.**

Doc’s got Ian on new meds. That’s why Ian’s still asleep. He’d sleep a lot longer if he didn’t have to get up. 

Doc said Ian had been undertreated in prison. Put him on a stronger dose. His body is still getting used to it. He hasn’t been up for much lately. No energy, no appetite, and no sex, either.

Besides when Mickey hovers around meals, making sure Ian eats, he’s been trying to give Ian space. It’s partly why Mickey’s taken to his 6 a.m. coffee outside. His boyfriend is touchy about anything related to bipolar, and he particularly doesn’t like it when Mickey mother hens him. Stubborn fuck thinks he can do it all himself. Settle into this routine all on his own. Apparently that’s what his mother did, although Mickey would like to point out that that did fuck all to help her.

Mickey thinks that Ian still thinks they’re the same as when they were kids, raw and stubborn and fiercely independent. I’ll do my thing and you do your thing, and we’ll meet in the middle. Mickey wants to tell Ian that it’s been five years for him. Five years away from the South Side. Five years of surviving and growing up and thinking about what went wrong the first time around. He wants to tell Ian he doesn’t think of them that way anymore. Mickey has Ian’s name tattooed to his chest, over his heart. He’d thought about their relationship over and over in prison, on the run, in prison again. Ian is a part of him.

But Mickey’d never say any of that pussy shit out loud, and definitely not when Ian wasn’t exactly himself.

So Mickey slips on his work clothes and then takes his shoes over to the side of the bed. He sits down on the edge of the bed, Ian’s sleeping body curled around him. And he reaches out and shakes Ian awake. Ian stirs only after a moment. The meds knock him out cold. He sleeps deep and long and wakes up groggy.

“Hey there.” Mickey says softly. Slips on a shoe casually, like he hadn’t noticed a thing.

Ian blinks and registers what Mickey’s wearing. He reaches for his phone on the nightstand to check the time.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, sitting up. He adjusts himself on the bed so that he sits shoulder-to-shoulder with Mickey, running a hand over his face.

Mickey supposes having to be woken up would probably feel like a failure for a guy who used to get up at the crack of dawn each morning and do a hundred pushups or whatever. Mickey used to be the guy barely waking up before noon. Now look at them.

Mickey wants to say, I should have gone with you to that fucking free clinic, you know those doctors don’t know shit. They think they need to save us all from ourselves. He wants to say, I was with you in prison, I shared a cell with you, I’d know if you needed new meds. I’d’ve done something about it if you weren’t being taken care of. But he knows Ian doesn’t want to talk about this. Instead he presses a kiss to Ian’s freckled shoulder.

“Tammi’ll be looking for you soon.” Mickey says. “Franny’s already downstairs.”

“Debbie?” Ian asks.

“Dunno.” Mickey says after a pause. He slips on his other shoe. “Carl said she didn’t come home.”

Ian nods. It wasn’t the first time.

“I’m off.” Mickey says, reaching to grab his wallet and phone from the nightstand.

Since Ian’s PO bit it, Ian’s been out of work. Guess the state isn't anxious to reassign her parolees and undo the clusterfuck she had started. He’s a new PO, but he's still trying to find work for Ian. It was just as well. Ian’s doc changed his meds around the same time. So Ian’s been providing free childcare for Lip, Tammi, and Debbie, even in his hazed state. In the meantime, Mickey puts forward money for both of them towards bills and rent and food.

Ian nods, then looks guilty. He leans against Mickey.

“I know,” Mickey says, wrapping an arm around him. Ian’s mood tends to take extremes when he’s changing meds. Right now, missing another breakfast with Mickey seems like the worst thing in the world.

Ian and Mickey both pride themselves on their toughness. Their South Side-bred rigidity. Their relationship was carved from it – two kids with massive chips on their shoulders, fucking it out. Then it became something more. Then the rest of this shit happened. Now Ian leans against Mickey without a word and Mickey holds him tight. It unnerves Mickey sometimes, even still. Even after everything. For Mickey, this feeling, caring so much, sometimes it scares the shit out of him.

**10 a.m.**

The mall opens at 10, and all the stores within it. Mickey hates the mall. He hates it when it’s closed and he watches his yuppie coworkers folding clothes or sliding corduroy pants onto junkless mannequins. And he hates the mall when it’s open and Chicago’s elderly, and then middle-class moms, and then bored teens, swarm in. He hates them all.

It’s not a dull hate, it’s not like, oh, man, that guy looks like a dick, it’s like, this man makes more in a year than any Milkovich has made in his life, and he chooses to come to the mall and waste it all on this shit?

Mickey’s PO apparently has a reputation for sending South Siders up north when he finds them jobs. It’s a bit of a quid pro quo. The shopowners up north want South Side muscle (for what, Mickey doesn’t know. No one’s desperate enough to steal shit around here). And Mickey’s PO, he wants to take his parolees out of the South Side. Show them that there’s more to the city than the block they were born in.

“You doing security for the whole store?” another parolee asks. Her name’s Chanel. Larry the PO got her a job at Justice. She spends her days making sure tweens don’t steal plastic earrings.

He and Chanel are outside sharing a smoke. It’s past 10 but no one’s gonna steal shit right when the mall opens. The old people walk around for a few hours first before any of the shoppers actually arrive. Besides, their coworkers are too scared to say anything to them.

“Nah,” he says, passing her the cigarette. “My joint’s a little bigger than yours. Got two of us.”

“Who’s the other one, one of Larry’s?” Chanel asks. She’s new, like him, and from the South Side.

“Not a felon.” Mickey says. “Just big.”

Chanel’s rough. She’s got two kids she’s trying to get out of a foster system that hardly ever believes black felons can truly reform. She’s got to prove she can hold down a steady job, and that's just step one. Mickey hasn’t asked her what she went in for. She hasn’t asked him, either.

“Well fuck him.” Chanel says, blowing out smoke. She passes the cigarette back to him. “He ain’t special just ‘cause he’s big and not a crook.”

Mickey grunts in agreement and drags on the cigarette. “Took me over a fucking hour today,” he says. He means the commute. That’s part of the problem. PO sends him to the North Side, but Mickey doesn’t have a car, and Chicago public transportation is afraid of the South Side. Fucking red line only goes so far south before it just stops and South Siders have to fend for themselves. So Mickey takes a bus to the red line, and then he takes the damn red line up north, until he reaches the mall Larry likes to dump his parolees at.

“Shit.” Chanel snorts. “Same here. You know Larry said that’s how come he sent us up here? Says it’s good for us to think about life and shit. Our decisions and our community and our people. You know, think about whether it’s really best for us to be on the South Side.” She laughs again. “As if we could afford anything else. As if our whole lives weren’t on the South Side.”

“Did enough thinkin’ in prison.” Mickey says. “And I’m paying too much for the fuckin’ train as it is.” He stubs out the cigarette. Glances at Chanel, who knows what he’s gonna say. She’s already turning on her headset. He says it anyway. “You ready to go in?”

**1 p.m.**

It would maybe be a more exciting job if one of these bougie teens actually stole something every once in a while. His first day on the job a woman tried to nab a dress, and for a second, as he chased her down, he forgot where he was. It wasn’t until he caught her that he remembered he was stopping a bored member of the upper crust from getting her rocks off through a sixty-dollar dress.

Since then, things have been boring. His dweebiest of coworkers tells him it's because he's such a menacing presence. People heard about the felon at Old Army with the tattoos and the muscles. They think twice about shoplifting now.

But mostly, day in and day out, he walks around the store with his arms crossed over his chest, watching customers with a sharp gaze. The other security guy stands by the door the whole time. A far more boring job.

When it’s time for lunch, his coworkers head towards the food court. Mickey tried that for a bit; his wallet didn’t like it. Now that he’s putting in money for Ian’s share of the rent, he’s gotta watch what he spends money on. Besides, an extra large slice of pizza every day doesn’t do much for the muscles he was hired for.

Mickey usually heads back outside and sits on the sidewalk with his bag lunch and another cigarette. Usually another parolee joins him, in a way that suggests he or she doesn’t exactly want to eat lunch with someone, and that if Mickey hadn’t been outside, they would have eaten on the sidewalk anyway. They ignore each other unless someone mentions how fucking stuck up these North Siders are, and then Mickey’ll chime in in agreement.

But today it’s not Chanel who joins, or anyone else in his motley crew. It’s the dweeb, Kyle, who follows him all the way to the back entrance of the store.

“Are you eating out there?” he asks, surprised.

“What do you want?” Mickey responds. “I’m on break.” He wants to call Ian. He wants to check in. He clocks out and takes his brown bag and heads out the door, but still Kyle follows him.

“Can you tell me about prison?” Kyle asks. He’s maybe 18 years old and thinks he’s just like Mickey because he’s not going to college, but Mickey overheard someone else say that he’s just taking a gap year because his test scores sucked ass, and he’s gotta study some more to get into the rich, private college the rest of his rich, private school classmates are going to.

“Fuck off, man, lemme eat my sandwich.” Mickey says. He sits down on the concrete and hopes to God he has enough willpower not to break this kid’s nose.

“No, seriously, I wanna— _dude._ ” Kyle rushes to sit down next to Mickey and then notices his hand, wrapped up from this morning. “Did you punch somebody?”

Mickey scowls. Doesn’t say anything. Eats his ham and cheese.

“Listen, just tell me this: you do a lot of fighting in prison?”

“Why the fuck you wanna know what I did in prison?” Mickey snaps.

“I want you to beat someone up for me.” Kyle says just as quickly, words tumbling out in his nervousness.

Mickey pauses. Lowers his sandwich.

“It’s this kid from school.” Kyle continues. “But not like, I mean, he’s not a child. He’s 18. He’s an adult. I want you to beat him up.”

Mickey scoffs. Starts eating again. “I’m on parole, man. Not gonna fuck that up because you can’t defend yourself.”

“I know.” Kyle says eagerly. “I want to make it worth your while. Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you. Weed, Xanax, Oxy—”

“I want a Ventra card.” Mickey says, then, dead serious. “One of those three-month passes. For the train.”

“Wh—that’s it?” Kyle asks, stumped.

“That’s what I fucking want.” Mickey snaps back. “And I don’t want you to talk to me again, got that?” He scowls at Kyle. “And I’m not breaking anyone’s bones, either.”

**6 p.m.**

Mickey gets home a little later than normal with some bruised knuckles. Had to go a bit out of his way to beat up the dweeb’s bully, who turned out to be another dweeb. Mickey’s knuckles collided with the kid’s braces at one point. And he might’ve broken the kid's nose. He was even weaker than he looked.

Not the same beating up high schoolers when you’re 25, Mickey thinks, but Kyle gets him two Ventra passes instead of one and then passes him fifty bucks. The extra stuff must have been because of the broken nose. Now the kid couldn’t play trumpet in the school band or something. Whatever, Mickey had said, and pocketed the cash.

Besides that, the commute home is just the same. Mickey sits in the back and watches as the train car becomes emptier and emptier, and all the well-dressed white people file out. When it’s just South Siders again, Mickey relaxes a little. Chanel sits nearby. She raises her eyebrows at him, as if to say, at least they’re gone. At least they won’t stare anymore.

And then the red line ends. And then he takes the bus. And then he walks a few blocks to get home. But at least his walk home is mostly quiet. As soon as he steps into the Gallagher home, it’s loud again.

Ian’s in the front room. He’s got Franny wrapped around his leg and Fred in his arms, and he looks more awake than Mickey has seen him in days. He’s also arguing with Debbie, who’s got her arms crossed against her chest and some sort of sparkly dress on that Mickey’s never seen before.

“I told you I probably wasn’t coming home last night—”

“Yeah. Emphasis on ‘probably,’ Debs—”

“Oh please, you used to do this all the—”

“I don’t have a _child_. And I can’t look after her 24/7. You said—”

And then the back door opens, and Lip appears in his work clothes. Then the front door opens and Tammi’s back from work, too.

“Oh, hey,” she says as she brushes past Mickey. She and Lip reach Ian at the same time and Lip extracts his baby from Ian’s arms.

“Thank you, man.” Lip says to Ian, but it falls on deaf ears and Debbie starts up again.

“I don’t understand why I’m not allowed to have fun once in a while. I do so much for this family—”

“I’m not saying you can’t have fun—” Ian seems unsure what to do with his arms now that he’s free of one child. He reaches down and scoops Franny up. “—I’m trying to say—”

“Hey, you.” Lip and Tammi kiss, greeting each other at the same time.

“You have a good day?” Tammi asks.

“All good at work?” Lip asks at the same time.

“Yeah, well—” Tammi starts, and then notices Lip’s attention waning, and he turns towards Ian and Debbie. “Here,” Tammi says, reaching her arms out. “Let me take Fred. You deal with this.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Lip says, distracted. He hands Fred over and then takes Franny from Ian’s arms.

“Debs,” he says, in the voice he uses when he attempts to exercise his right as the now oldest child. “We gonna have to talk about this little one, here? And you leaving her last night?”

“I _told_ you guys—” Debbie starts, exasperated.

“You didn’t!” Ian protests.

Then, from the kitchen, the beeping of an oven. “Dinner!” Carl yells. This seems to momentarily silence the Gallaghers, as they decide if their growling stomachs are worth more than the discussions at hand.

“We’re not finished.” Lip says, giving Debbie a stern look. Debbie huffs, but reaches out her arms, and finally Lip places Franny in her arms.

“Mommy!” Franny says.

“I’m starving,” Tammi says, and it’s her way of saying, you guys can do this after dinner. When I’m back in the RV with Fred.

So the Gallaghers file into the kitchen, and Ian’s left childless in the front room, looking troubled. He glances up when he hears the front door close, finally, and sees Mickey standing there.

“Mick,” he breathes out, relief washing over him.

“Hey.” Mickey says, and he can’t help but smile. “Hi, you.”

Ian meets him halfway, and they kiss, a good, long kiss. “I didn’t see you come in,” Ian says when they finally break apart.

“Wasn’t about to get caught in that Gallagher shitstorm.” Mickey says. “Jesus, you Gallaghers can fight.”

Ian looks a little sheepish. He rubs Mickey’s shoulder. “Long day?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

“C’mon,” Mickey says, “let’s eat.”

**7 p.m.**

After dinner, Ian takes Mickey upstairs to the bathroom. He cleans his bruised knuckles and checks on his burned hand. “You should have told me,” he says.

“When?” Mickey says. “Which time?”

“I would have helped,” Ian says, although the comment doesn’t make much sense to Mickey.

“I’m fine.” Mickey says. “Don’t worry about me.”

“So you beat up some kid?” Ian asks.

Mickey nods. “Got a couple Ventra cards.” He says. Reaches into his pocket with his free hand and pulls one out. “So if you ever wanted to visit me, you know, at work. You could do that.”

Ian nods. Takes the card. “And the burn?” he asks.

“From this morning.” Mickey says. “Spilled some coffee. It’s not big deal. Saw Liam asleep in the grass. Thought he was hurt.”

“Liam—? Oh.” Ian lets out a laugh. “He was sleepwalking again.”

“Yeah. Didn’t know he did that.” Mickey says.

“Yeah.” Ian wraps up the burned hand again. “We’re not really sure why.” He pauses. “I wouldn’t mention it to Lip.” He shrugs. “Lip thinks it has something to do with when Liam…well, with the overdose. Sorta sets him off when someone mentions that.”

“Oh yeah?” Mickey says. He thinks back. He has some memories of this, of Fiona’s brief stint in jail and Liam in ICU. Ian had barely been around for that. Mickey heard it all secondhand. Maybe it’s a sore spot for Ian, too, that he wasn’t there for his family then.

“But someone always finds him.” Ian continues. “Usually Lip. Sometimes me. He never goes far.”

But what if he does go far, Mickey wants to say. What a ridiculous thing to say. It’s okay to let a 10-year-old walk around the block in the middle of the night because he ‘won’t go far’?

Mickey’s not yet sure what’s his place. He knows Liam least of all the Gallaghers. Far be it from him to offer advice on raising children, either.

“Whatever man,” he decides to say instead. He pulls out the fifty bucks from his pocket. “For your little jar of money or whatever you call it.” Places it all in Ian’s hands. “For the water and electricity and shit.”

Ian raises his eyebrows but pockets the cash.

**10 p.m.**

He and Ian spend the rest of the night indoors. It’s a Wednesday, and Mickey’s got work in the morning. Ian’s gotta babysit again, too. Nothing makes Mickey feel older than turning in early because he’s gotta commute to his steady job in the morning.

He putzes around downstairs for a few hours. Shares a beer with Carl. Tries to figure out why exactly Carl wants to work with the pigs all of a sudden. Wasn’t he just harboring a bunch of undocumented immigrants from the police?

Then he and Ian make lunches for the next day for everyone. They’re out of cheese slices. So then they call Lip in and Ian and Lip spend twenty minutes working out the family budget. The fifty dollars Mickey chips in helps, but it’s gotta go to the electricity bill. Lip and Tammi’s time off with the newborn hasn’t helped, and Mickey suddenly feels like he should have asked for more than a measly train pass in exchange for beating that kid up, and that makes him feel like shit, so he goes out for a smoke and leave the Gallaghers to it. Eventually, Lip calls Debbie down to work out the numbers again. When he comes back in, the three Gallaghers are getting into it again over Franny, so Mickey bypasses them completely. Heads upstairs.

The light in Liam’s room is on, still. Mickey hesitates, then heads towards the room. He pauses, then knocks. There’s no answer, but the light’s on, so Mickey takes a gamble. Opens the door.

Liam’s asleep above the covers. There’s a book lying facedown on his chest. _The Autobiography of Malcolm X._ The room is a mess, covered with costumes and wigs and African-looking shit. But Mickey’s not concerned with any of that. He turns towards the door. Jimmies the knob a bit.

“What are you doing?” Liam groans, stirring. “I’m reading.”

“Yeah,” Mickey snorts. “’Reading.’” He inspects the door some more. “This door lock?”

“Lock?”

“Yeah, can I lock this door?”

“What are you talking about?” Liam asks.

Mickey sighs. Turns around. “You shouldn’t be sleepwalking outside.” He says, uncomfortable. “It’s not safe.”

“You think I can’t jimmy a lock?” Liam says, sitting up.

“When you’re asleep?” Mickey counters. He crosses his arms against his chest. Liam looks down. “Listen,” Mickey says. “just let me put in a lock, okay? I’ll pick something up tomorrow at work.” He pauses. “Ian’s got Fred and Franny to worry about, okay? He doesn’t need another kid on his mind.”

“Okay,” Liam says. “Can I help?”

Mickey shrugs. “Okay.” He scratches the back of his head, nodding. That’s settled, then. “What’s with all the costumes? You in a school play or something?”

“It’s summer.” Liam says. “There isn’t any school.”

Mickey shrugs, indignant.

“And they aren’t costumes,” Liam says. “I’m trying to get in touch with my people.”

“Oh.” Mickey says. “Okay.”

“I could help you, if you wanted.” Liam says. “If you wanted to know your community.”

“My what?”

“You know,” Liam says. “Your people. Ellen DeGeneres. James Baldwin.” He looks at Mickey very earnestly. “Gay people,” he says.

“All right,” Mickey responds quickly. “Okay, I don’t…I’m good, thanks.”

“But—”

“Just…get some sleep, okay? Without the wandering.” Mickey says. “Goodnight.”

“Okay.” Liam says. “Goodnight.”

“And turn off the lamp.”

**11 p.m.**

“I can’t believe we’re in bed right now.” Ian says.

Finally, it’s just the two of them, and the house is quiet. Debbie’s gone out. Carl and Liam are asleep. Franny’s down for the count. Lip and Tammi are back in the RV with the baby.

“I can, man, I’m beat.” Mickey says, getting into bed. Ian’s spread out on top of the covers already, hands on his chest. “You figure out the money situation?”

“Yeah,” Ian says. “Just ham sandwiches for a while.”

“Whatever.” Mickey says. He’d eat two slices of bread slapped over a bunch of Doritos for lunch if that’s all they had. “Fred’s birth really did you all in, huh?”

“That,” Ian nods. “And me losing my job. And Debbie buying a bunch of clothes she can’t return.”

“You Gallaghers really know how to stretch a buck.” Mickey says. He settles under the covers. Rolls onto his side to face his boyfriend better. “How’d you feel today?” he asks.

“Better.” Ian admits. “Took me less time for the grogginess to go away. Starting to get my appetite back, too.”

“Oh yeah?” Mickey says. He leans forward. Ian kisses him, reaches out to run a hand along Mickey’s arm, but pulls away after a while.

“Not all my appetites,” he says quietly. “Sorry.”

Mickey shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry.” He says. “Like I said, I’m beat.”

“We’ll have a lot to make up for.” Ian says, smirking a little. “When I feel better.”

“Yeah, I’ll hold you to that.” Mickey says. “C’mon, lemme sleep, man.” He kisses Ian again. “Night,” he says. “I love you. Turn off the light.”

“Night, Mick.” Ian laughs. He reaches over Mickey to turn off the lamp. “Love you."

Mick rolls onto his side and Ian reciprocates, arms draped across Mickey’s back. They settle against each other.

Tomorrow Mickey’ll work. And the next day. It’s part of the deal of being free. Of being a parolee. He’s gotta prove he can lead a normal life. Stability and all that. It’s not easy. Mickey’s barely got any money to his name and what he has he gives to the Gallaghers, to Ian. But it’s worth it. He thinks, if he could say what he really wanted to say, he would sit the ragtag family down, each one of them, and thank them. He’s never seen a family like this before. He’s never seen people care about each other like this, even when they’re fighting. He thinks, if Larry the PO thinks the only way to ensure he doesn’t go back to prison is to send him up north, out of the South Side, to work at some outlet store as hired muscle, then Mickey would have Ian revive that whole anarchic thing he was doing while Mickey was in Mexico and stage a protest, him and the other parolees. He’d say, the only way to ensure Mickey Milkovich doesn’t end up in prison again is to stick him in a house full of Gallaghers and have his paycheck actually go towards something. To impress upon Mickey that each day he works he’s putting food into those kids’ mouths. And each day he keeps his nose clean, or only does lightly illegal things, like anything less than a felony, he gets to spend another night with Ian.

But Mickey’s not gonna say any of that pussy shit. Who’d wanna hear that, anyway? Instead, Mickey just pulls Ian tighter against him. Hopes his actions speak for themselves. Rests up for tomorrow.


End file.
